Notes
All extra details are based on information supplied by the College Archivist (see Additional Information). This included the following biographical details: '(1906) Born 2 November 1887, 6 Lorton Terrace, London; son of George Edwin Cruickshank, Barrister, and Sarah Maria Tylor. Subject(s): Mathematics; BA 1909. Tutor(s): J R Tanner. Johnian Relatives: son of George Edwin Cruickshank (1866); brother of George Malcolm Cruickshank (1905). Educ: Linton House School; Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet; Aldenham School. Career: Assistant with Nicholson and Corlette, Lincoln's Inn; School of the Architectural Association 1909; Private, Public Schools Battalion, Royal Fusiliers 1914; Second Lieutenant, Border Regiment; attached Wiltshire Regiment. Awards: Banister Fletcher Bursary 1912. Died 9 April 1916 (killed in action in Mesopotamia).' Another biographical source (see References) states: 'Donald Cruickshank, who read maths and was a keen rower, trained as an architect. When he sailed from England his ship had to avoid U-Boats in the Mediterranean, as the transport ship in front of them was torpedoed. He took part in the evacuation of Gallipoli then was sent to Mesopotamia. He was particularly interested in Basra and the River Tigris. Several nights he was up to his waist in water repairing the holes cut into the river’s banks by the Ottoman forces to flood the British camps. He took part in a disastrous attack against the Turkish positions that was badly organized in terms of the route taken by the British troops. While the first line of troops took the trenches, the officer of the second line ordered his men to withdraw and the third line of troops refused to advance. Indian troops, who made up the bulk of Britain’s force in Mesopotamia, offered to advance instead, but this offer was not taken up in time. Cruikshank, like Ritchie, was part of a wider and unsuccessful attempt to relieve the British troops at Kut. Cruickshank was in that first line and was last seen on the parapet of the Turkish trenches. His employer in London wrote that he was a ‘charming and modest’ man. Some 16,000 British troops surrendered at Kut and were marched into Ottoman captivity. The disaster led to many changes in the British Army, and the British eventually captured Baghdad in 1917 and occupied the rest of Mesopotamia in 1918.'